You Belong to Me

 
You Belong to Me by Mary Higgins Clark

Review by Gerti

There is a great and plausible plot in Mary Higgins Clark’s offering “You Belong to Me” up until a sour note sounds when the killer is revealed at the end. The novels tells the story of a man who targets lonely women on vacation. The whack-job (and I think I can call him that!) uses the old song as the basis of his killing spree. If you don’t know the tune, it goes – “See the pyramids along the Nile. Watch the sunset on a tropic isle. Just remember darling all the while, you belong to me.” There are other verses, but you get the point. He takes women away from their tour groups and to the places named in the song, and then they disappear. Oh, and being freaky, he gives them all identical rings, which is what makes him easier to catch.

Dr. Susan Chandler is a radio psychologist like Dr. Fraser Crane. Hoping to warn women against being victims, she has a guest on her show who wrote a new book about women who disappear and have become victims of crimes due to their loneliness. That on-air discussion puts Dr. Chandler in the swirling heart of danger. She is contacted by the mother of one such victim, Regina Clausen, a wealthy successful woman who found romance on a cruise and then was never heard from again. Other women begin to call the show with clues about a ring that reads “You Belong to Me”, but when Chandler tries to track it down, she finds both that girl caller and the New York maker of those custom rings are dead. Is the killer someone Susan knows? Has he been listening to her show? Or is it the author of the book himself?

Like most Clark stories, there are red herrings thrown into the plot before the true killer is revealed. There are also other evil characters, male and female, who give spice to the action, including Susan’s man-hungry sister, Dee. In the end, however, I find that Clark’s killer choice seemed wrong. He was the least likely suspect, and even at the dramatic conclusion of the story, seems like a square peg shoved into a round hole for the sake of Clark’s being unpredictable. The rest of the writing was in Clark’s usual easy-going style, which made “You Belong to Me” a pleasure to read, although I did get tired of hearing about the lyrics to the title song! Not her best, but still fun.